It would appear that TesseracT are gearing up to release a new album. Nothing official has been announced as of yet, but listings have shown up for an album entitled Sonder, to be released on April 20th.

The only album they sounded even mildly organic on was One, easily their best songwriting and Dan's least processed performance.

But please, tell me how Altered didn't sound fake as shit with drums compressed to hell or how Polaris didn't sound digital.
Or how Smile doesn't have the dumbest mixing. The snare is mixed literally louder than anything else.

Chug I get if you don't like the style of production they're going for, but to dismiss the production the way you have just shows how little you understand about what can go into a quality production job. If you knew how much hard work, skill, and experience, goes into getting that production style to that level, I guarantee you'd be much more diplomatic.

The phrase "overproduced" itself doesn't even make much sense. It's a hollow and primitive term thrown around by the misinformed to convince others that they know what they're talking about.

TesseracT's production has been awful, One sounds great and has a nice vibe to it, but last records didn't even have real drums, most of it was programmed or played on an electronic drum kit. They should hire a mixing engineer. It's way cheaper to let your guitarist do it, but it sounds a lot worse sadly. And yes, Polaris sounded super muffled, they just cut out a shitload of high frequencies on that record for some reason.

This song sounds pretty good though, but the 'huge' programmed / sampled drums are still here. Musically this song is decent, the main riff is nice

@SitarHero I've seen Ashe live in Voices From the Fuselage and he absolutely killed it on stage. Both are great singers in their own right, although I think Ashe's vocals suit VFTF better than Tessrract.

altered state's prod is some of my favourite hyper-clean, overtly-compressed prod ive ever heard. those aren't really facets that are appreciated by hi-fi nerds but i felt they pulled that shit off marvelously there.

as for this, the opening riff sounds like something monuments would write which is cool but the rest of the song was boring as shit.

I understand how mixing and production work, I have my own experience. I am by no means Kurt Ballou or anything but I do know what goes into making a record.

Compare One to Polaris. Two different records and I assume two different outcomes were wanted for each.
Polaris has been polished to a slick shine with a lot of studio techniques present, it does not take an expert to know that much of the album was recorded DI and then re-amped to hell. The drums are also suspiciously dry with enough compression to last several albums.
The first half of Cages is an example of what happens when you maintain the same velocity and pitch in whatever drum software you are using. When I hear Dan softly crooning and then a dry as shit snare beating just as loud as it would in say a heavy part, it sounds quite jarring.
Perhaps it was a deliberate decision, we will probably never know.

One, although lacking in individual instrument fidelity, forgoes a lot of the later shine they would end up using for drums that maintain their clarity while still having some range present.

saying the term overproduced doesn't make sense is an absolutely ridiculous assertion. when everything is battling to be the first element heard, it loses all dynamic range and becomes both overwhelming and completely neutered at once. there are plenty of albums were clean, clinical production just doesn't work for the music being played and it's important to remember all each piece of music -even if it's different works from the same band - should have a production tailored to the songs on that piece.

If you knew how much hard work, skill, and experience, goes into getting that production style to that level, I guarantee you'd be much more diplomatic.

what a fucking useless and contradictory thing to say coming from someone who rates music. you've given albums 1.5s, 2s, 2.5s, etc...

The term overproduced can be applicable here.
Do those drums still resemble their original instrument sound? Barely.
Was that the intended effect? Possibly.
They have been heavily resampled and compressed and no longer sound like natural, organic drums.

I don't know about you, but I am pretty sure drums do not sound like that unless you overproduce the hell out of them.

I cited Cages as an example, Seven Names is the next song I will use as an example. It is probably one of my favorite songs of Polaris. Listen to the snare throughout the song. Why does it have that constantly jacked up sound?

In the past, I used multiple snare samples that work with the dynamics of the song, on Seven Names it (I think they might use two different ones but I could be wrong) sounds like one sample throughout with no variance except for some fills where the sample is shortened but the same pitch used.
After listening, they turn up the compression for the Snare during the chorus to stop the very fake decay bleeding into the rest of the mix, makes sense given there is a lot going on in that section of the song.

I cannot fault them for the way they record their clean guitar though. They have mastered that shimmering sound and all credit due on that one.

All I am saying is their drums do not sound good on the newer material.

Jamie is a sick drummer and I think he sounded best on One and Altered State.

One doesn't have that tight, precise sound that they go for on Polaris but it has a range that I just do not hear on their later material.

Nascent is an excellent example of how the drums are mixed for both loud and quieter sections. There is some bleeding from cymbals, there is some decent mid-range present from the usage of toms and a slight rubbery sound produced from the drums overall.

Maybe you prefer a sound tailored for headphones at the loss of a somewhat realistic sounding drum mix, that's fair. I prefer something of a livelier mix.

There are people out there that love that sound, usually their fans. It is not my thing at all.
Periphery is guilty of a very similar thing, they manage to get a more balanced sound tho.
Hell Below is how you manage to mix such goofy ass tuning and not make it sound like a bad joke.

The term "Overproduction" has been bastardized to somehow shame techniques that are the norm, and often positives, in the pop of electronic genres. Imagine if I claimed dubstep is a mess because it's overproduced". That would be a futile criticism because I would be missing the point of that type of music entirely.

TesseracT CHOOSE to use this style of production.

I like to equate production to something like Cinematography in film. There is a lot of technique, teamwork, skill, and theory, that go into consistently making your frames look good. Production has A LOT of black and white elements to it. Those hard skills prevents it from BEING AS subjective as music. Because of that, I think it's more important to give credit to production when it's done competently.

It's interesting to see you get more diplomatic chug. I think it's obvious you made a pretty bold claim to elicit a reaction. What I see now, are explanations for why you don't like the new TesseracT production choices. My issue is with your original claim that "this will be an overproduced mess". I don't necessarily see you trying to singularly prove that anymore.

I don't understand why you would pivot to dubstep as if it isn't a completely different genre of music. Tesseract is not a pop/electronic/dubstep project. They are a metal band.

Their CHOICE to use this type of production, doesn't necessarily mean it is the best way for it to be produced. Nobody is denying the hard work the band/producer put into the the way they sound.

There is literally nothing in the world except true objective fact(s) like 2+2=4 that isn't subjective and to imply there are levels of subjectivity on a piece of art seems strange. Once again, nobody is criticizing the skill of the people involved necessarily. Yes, the drums sound clear. Yes, the guitars are crisp. But is it servicing the music? Is it the right fit? Some art doesn't demand such clinical perfection, and some art can even decline in quality because of it.

"I don't understand why you would pivot to dubstep as if it isn't a completely different genre of music. Tesseract is not a pop/electronic/dubstep project. They are a metal band.

Their CHOICE to use this type of production, doesn't necessarily mean it is the best way for it to be produced."

See, I think that's kind of his point. The assumption that TesseracT is a metal band is already forcing you to have expectations of what they SHOULD sound like. The fact is, as NonApp is trying to assert, that the drum sound, in particular, and the album's production, in general, is a conscious and informed artistic decision by TesseracT and calling it an "overproduced mess" because it doesn't sound organic enough misses the point of their music almost completely.

This is better than anything on Polaris, but I always tend to like their singles then sour on them when the whole album sounds identical to said single.

Independent of the production values, the Tesseract albums since Altered State have become less varying and dynamic stylistically which has made them quite a bore to listen to. The production reflects that and further accent my issues with them in general.

They don't need to go back to Djenting, they don't have to quit it with the "overproduction", but plastering the same effects over each song with everything compressed to shit masks what little variance there is track-by-track.

Few bands can do the same shit over and over again and get away with it. For me, these guy can't and their recent mixes don't help in that front either.

I don't have any expectation of what their sound should be. I just know that I don' t like what I'm hearing. I feel based on their sound - with no relation to the metal genre as a whole - the production does a disservice to the potential impact to be had. Production in metal is not wholesale, there is (obviously) not a one sound fit all and I don't know many people that feel like it should be that way.

But what i do know is that for whatever their reasoning may be, a sizeable amount of people have a problem with Tesseract's production. It's not about sounding "organic" its about the fact it sounds like shit. Now, if that sound fits their vision for the music that is absolutely fine, but don't try and tell me and countless others we should just blindly accept that because it sounds the way it was meant to sound as perceived by the band, that there's nothing to criticize. Based off that logic, reviewing and rating music as a whole just became pointless.

I don't disagree that in general Polaris's production was not great and hindered the quality of the album. Critique of something that doesn't work on an album is fair game. However, the tone of the initial comments criticizing TesseracT's production definitely slanted towards the fact that it didn't sound a CERTAIN way, which is what I take issue with.

It's one thing if the critique is that drums are obtrusive and hindering enjoyment of a song/album. It's another thing if the critique is that the drums don't sound enough like drums.

I don't get people calling Polaris samey while praising Altered State or One. Polaris is their least samey effort. Also I hope these guys can add something new to their sound, because it's getting stale

These guys thrive more in the longer cuts imo, in Altered State every song spaced everything out and gave everything room to breath, with this new song, it is standard TesseracT so far, lets see what the rest of the album has to offer

I just have a problem with (obvious) sampled drums, that's all... Polaris' production was awful though, but atleast they are improving on this record. I can agree though that their style of production doesn't help them sounding less stale.